And this is the perennial genius of the State: it not only seizes power through deception, but maintains it through the willing self-deception of its subjects. The bamboozle becomes not merely a passing fraud, but the very foundation of political legitimacy. Once the public has been conditioned to equate the State’s coercion with social order, they will defend their own shackles and denounce anyone who points to the lock. The State is not an unfortunate accident that can be corrected by ‘better men’ in office; it is a permanent machinery of plunder and control, inherently hostile to truth and liberty. To grant it power, no matter how small, is to grant it the means to grow, to entrench the bamboozle ever deeper—until, at last, the parasite destroys the host.

The economic freedom which is the prerequisite of any other freedom cannot be the freedom from economic care which the socialists promise us. — Friedrich Hayek

They still believe the economy is a machine with knobs and levers — not a living network mutating beyond their comprehension.

Economics is not a science of material objects or their physical characteristics. It is the logical analysis of human action — of purposeful behavior under conditions of scarcity. Concepts such as “goods,” “commodities,” or “wealth” do not exist independently in nature; they arise from the subjective meanings actors assign to things in the context of their ends and means. All economic categories — value, cost, exchange, profit, loss — are rooted in the structure of action itself, not in empirical observation of physical phenomena. To reduce economics to the study of “goods and services” is to commit a category error. It is not the properties of things that matter, but that these things are chosen, valued, and acted upon by individuals. Economics, properly understood, is praxeology — the systematic study of action based on self-evident axioms, not empirical materialism.

Nothing stops this train

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The collectivist seeks to replace the acting man with the abstraction of a collective will. But such a will does not exist; it cannot choose; it cannot value. It is always a mask—worn by the tyrant, the planner, the bureaucrat—who supplants the individual and extinguishes the only genuine source of progress: the spontaneous actions of free men. All collectivist doctrines—whether socialist, fascist, nationalist, or theocratic—demand the subjugation of the individual to a fictitious whole. They are not only morally repugnant; they are irrational. For they seek to annihilate the very mechanism of life: human action itself. So when we say that anything other than liberty—anarchy in a proper sense—is anti-human, we are not making an ideological claim, nor engaging in partisan rhetoric. We are stating a logical truth—one rooted in the nature of man as an acting being. Liberty is not a “value” in the relativist sense. It is a necessary condition for human action. Only a free individual can choose, prefer, and act. Without liberty, there is no actor—only obedience and decay. A system that denies liberty—by decree, coercion, and collectivist abstraction—seeks to extinguish the only agency through which human life is sustained: the individual choosing mind. To abolish liberty is to abolish action. To abolish action is to abolish life. https://mises.org/mises-wire/axiom-action-and-inescapability-liberty

The free market isn’t some naïve ideal. It is the only moral and practical framework for human cooperation. The real myth, the real danger, is your faith in Leviathan.

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Whoever wishes peace among peoples must fight statism. - Ludwig von Mises

The legacy of freedom is inscribed by those who envisioned a world liberated from tyranny, dared to challenge the fetters of oppression, and defended the pursuit of dignity and self-determination — ideals we must fervently uphold.

The reality of the Declaration is that it was far more radical than its critics are generally willing to admit. The Declaration advocated for an act of unilateral and illegal secession. Clearly, modern-day defenders of the regime attempt to downplay this whenever possible. Moreover, the language and ideals of the Declaration communicate a general disregard for ideals of political unity or loyalty to political institutions, in spite of British propaganda to the contrary. Thus, to act in the Spirit of the Declaration of Independence today is to reject calls for loyalty, unity, or respect for the regime’s so-called “rule of law.” Rather, the Declaration of Independence represents disloyalty, disunity, and a disregard for the law as laid down by the political ruling class. Part of the Declaration’s radicalism stems from the fact that the Declaration does not make a legal argument in favor of secession. Rather, the Declaration states that the right of separation stems simply from natural rights of self-determination that do not depend on legal or constitutional authority. The Declaration was a statement of contempt for the established legal order. British propaganda at the time, much like American propaganda today, sang the praises of political unity while encouraging an emotional bond between the ordinary subject and the ruling executive. Fortunately, the American secessionists saw such things for the absurdities that they were and have always been. The Spirit of the Declaration of Independence: Secession, Division, Disloyalty | Mises Institute https://share.google/r7ZLbxrg2fzhAsTuf

Now that the budget bill has passed Congress, we can see what the projections look like for deficits, government debt, and debt service expenses. In brief, the bill is expected to lead to spending of about $7 trillion a year with inflows of about $5 trillion a year, so the debt, which is now about 6x of the money taken in, 100 percent of GDP, and about $230,000 per American family, will rise over ten years to about 7.5x the money taken in, 130 percent of GDP, and $425,000 per family. That will increase interest and principal payments on the debt from about $10 trillion ($1 trillion in interest, $9 trillion in principal) to about $18 trillion (of which $2 trillion is interest payments), which will lead to either a big squeezing out (and cutting off) of spending and/or unimaginable tax increases, or a lot of printing and devaluing of money and pushing interest rates to unattractively low levels. This printing and devaluing is not good for those holding bonds as a storehold of wealth, and what’s bad for bonds and US credit markets is bad for everyone because the US Treasury market is the backbone of all capital markets, which are the backbones of our economic and social conditions. Unless this path is soon rectified to bring the budget deficit from roughly 7% of GDP to about 3% by making adjustments to spending, taxes, and interest rates, big, painful disruptions will likely occur. - Ray Dalio

Do not try to stop the train. That's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth.... Then you will see that it is not the train that stops, it is only yourself.

The Way does not mourn the paths untaken, but knows they were part of the choice. To walk one road is to leave behind a thousand others—not with sorrow, but with clarity. What is not chosen still shapes the meaning of what is. The sage sees the unseen cost, not as a burden, but as the shadow that gives form to light. Without the paths untaken, the one you walk would hold no shape